Atlantic Station-How did they deal with ‘the car’?
Martin Wiggins 4/30/02
Weighing in at 140 acres, Atlantic Steel is quite possibly the largest urban infill project ever. It will contain 12 million square feet of residential, retail, office, hotel, entertainment, and high tech development. The project has been touted as a “smart growth” solution for Atlanta’s debilitating sprawl, and proudly presents itself as nothing less than the utopian community. While anyone can realize that it will fall short of perfect, it is worth analyzing this project now, so that when it is functioning, one may understand why it works the way it does and be able to learn from it. In a city such as Atlanta, transportation can become the single most important element of a development. The city cannot tolerate any more car intensive developments, both ecologically and financially, thanks to the EPA. Since Atlantic Steel is projected to host over 40,00 residents and workers, assessing how it plans to cope with the “car problem” is certainly of interest. How do the transportation elements of the project fit into its context? How do they respond to the site as a place? What can be ascertained about the site strategy for transportation, from an urban design perspective? In closing, this paper will also propose what Atlantic Station actually is, in contrast with what it purports to be, and will look at what it might have been.
To the east of the site is Midtown Atlanta. The general transportation context of Midtown is a large street grid. It is walkable, but the scale of the grid is generally too large for an individual, and the amount of fast moving vehicles further discourages pedestrians. To the south and north are much smaller, neighborhood-scale grids. To the west is a four lane state road, Northside Drive, and remnants of the Midtown grid at a smaller scale. Only a small part of the lot is adjacent to Northside. The grid has been cut several times, isolating the site from its regularity. Rail lines to the north, part of a rail loop surrounding the city, have cut off the northern side of the site from warehouses and neighborhoods. The overall right of way patterns here are difficult to categorize, as they seem to be gridded in areas, and topographically determined in others. To the east, the giant I-75/85 interchange has cut off the site from midtown’s larger grid. To the south, large lots owned by Georgia Tech and a TV station among others have further compromised the continuity of the grid. Atlantic Station makes a few faint attempts at fitting in with or reconnecting these grids. Overall, an ambiguous reference to the idea of gridding is found here. There is not even one road that moves entirely through the site linearly. 17th Street is in fact the only road that makes it from one end of the site to the other at all. Other forms of transportation seem to be more generously accommodated for than in the areas surrounding. Bike trails and walkable streets, nonexistent in surrounding areas, are in place. Shuttle buses are to move through the site, but as to whether the site will be worked into the larger system of MARTA buses is unclear. Finally, in context with Midtown, but out of context with areas to the north, south, and west is the mammoth underground infrastructure and parking. While the density of Midtown usually causes parking to be located underground or atleast in off-street structures, Atlantic Station has taken this to a new level. The underground deck moves not only the majority of parking off street, but also garbage disposal and other assorted necessities. The other gridded roads, found mainly in the retail and office dominated eastern part of the site are seemingly arbitrarily determined. The gridded streets consist of short enough blocks and wide enough side areas to permit comfortable pedestrian travel. The central section is dominated by multifamily residential, organized around a City Beautiful-esque road which divides and moves around a lake. The multifamily housing sits in a modernist configuration, having little relationship with the road. The western portion is simply roads running the perimeter of the high-tech development, which formally appears to be an industrial park.
As a place, Atlantic Station seems to be a site caught between different elements. The site is a sort of connector, linking west Atlanta with Midtown, and Home Park with areas north of the rail line. The site is a connector because it is congruous to several distinctly different areas. Atlantic Station seems to be like a transition zone. The grid and the transportation of the site seem to acknowledge this, each area having something in common with its neighboring district. In the east, the grid acknowledges Midtown. South of 16th street, the Home Park grid is completed. In the north, the roads are such that the block turn their back to the rail line. In the west, the road is merely a connector. The land is dominated by the industrial park-like building, again akin to land usage to the west. Overall, when one understands the site as a part of a damaged urban fabric, it becomes clear that Atlantic Station does attempt to rectify the grid, but only through inserting an entirely new piece whose edges fade to match the areas they are placed next to.
The site strategy is interesting. The whole site basically works off 17th Street as a collector. It will be used by inhabitants as well as by those seeking a shortcut from Northside into Midtown. Off of that there are three different configurations. In the east, there is the small town American system of streets, blocks, and lots, but north of 17th, it will not function as one, because it will not work to provide multiple routes anywhere. It only serves to provide alternate routes within the eastern site area. In the middle, 17th turns into “the road through the park”, with a sparse Garden City superblock road structure. The housing is turned inward, forming walking paths and denying the right of way. In the west, 16th and 17th continue out to Northside, but there are no other roads, only a rear loading dock for Tech Village. Sufficient parking for this area is apparently underground. When one moves to the lower level, the real strategy becomes apparent. The road structure above becomes meaningless, as the real transportation will occur underground. The real strategy is to move vehicular services underground, while freeing up the surface to behave as surfaces did 100 years ago, before vehicles were as prevalent as they are today. This project is only New Urbanist while on the ground level plinth. Even at the edges, things get messy. Unexplained cul-de-sacs, roundabouts, and long ramping roads that disappear underground hint at another organizing device. This project is essentially an example of an Other urbanism. It is a modern, technological solution to the mutually exclusive terrains of the car and the pedestrian. The car has been put underground, where it has free reign-the formal manifestation of this is the parking deck. The surface has been given over to the pedestrian-the chosen manifestation of this is a reference to New Urbanism in the east, Garden City in the central area, and surprisingly, a mall in the west.
Atlantic Station is a fascinating project, because as an economic development, it does not seek to provide a model example of any urban design theory, but instead it seeks to provide what a majority of people want. Atlantic Station could have been other things, but I feel that what it has become-an attempt to somehow reconcile two contradictory elements of the city-was inevitable. While the seemingly best option would have been to make a continuation of the grid the organizing strategy for the site, instead, a road structure that allowed each element to develop as profitably as possible was used. In the east, the dense structure replicates an old cultural district of a nameless city. In the central area, roads are done away with to provide residents with an unencumbered landscape. In the west, making references to a re-invigorated industrial district, the true mixture of uses under one roof is applied. Atlantic Station is a prototype of where the American City may go in the future. Instead of expanding ever outward, seeking more space for the car, it is a thrust inward and upward. Sectionally, the city has divided itself between an upper and lower level. A schizophrenic, it cannot choose one or the other-is it the realm of the car or the person? |
|
Close Window mgoodwin@mgoodwinDESIGN.com |